Windows 10 serves up more update pain with a side order of random reboots

Windows 10 has hit more trouble, with the latest (August) cumulative update for PCs running the May 2019 Update apparently failing to install in some cases – with other worrying problems popping up, too, including random reboots.

The cumulative update in question is KB4512508 which comprises of security fixes for Microsoft’s browsers (Edge and IE), wireless networking, and input peripherals like your mouse and keyboard.

Some folks are seeing this cumulative update failing to install, with Windows 10 throwing out some typically useless error messages including ‘error 0x800f0982’ and ‘error 0x80073701’. Not very helpful when it comes to determining exactly what is going on here (or exactly what isn’t going on, more to the point).

Disgruntled users have posted on Reddit and Microsoft’s own Answers.com forum, reminding the software giant that in some cases they were hit by a similar installation failure with a cumulative update last month.

Microsoft hasn’t chimed in with any potential solution or comment yet, but fingers crossed the firm is looking into the apparent issues.

One user on Answers.com suggests manually downloading and installing the update as a standalone package (rather than through Windows Update), which worked on their Surface Pro hybrid. Of course, your mileage may vary, but it might be worth a shot.

Other more radical suggestions include running a repair install on Windows 10, but rather than take more drastic action, many folks are simply preferring to pause updates for now, and hope Microsoft gets this sorted in short order.

Random reboots

Previous Windows 10 cumulative updates have reportedly failed with the error code 0x800f0982 earlier this year, and on the aforementioned Reddit thread, one person noted they received this error when attempting to install the May 2019 Update itself.

There are apparently further gremlins in the Windows 10 works, too, as Windows Latest – which spotted all this – also points to Reddit complaints about users experiencing their PC randomly rebooting after the May 2019 Update (and this has been reported with the October 2018 Update, as well). Nasty indeed.

Thus far, it seems that these various issues are only affecting a relative minority of Windows 10 users, but particularly in the latter case, they are doubtless highly frustrating problems to run into.